Is it possible that the collapse of Bear Stearns is comparable to the destruction of the Second Temple? That might be the kind of question that James Cayne, the chairman of Bear, is asking himself.

Bear’s precipitous fall hurt a lot of people, but there are few who are feeling the sting like Cayne, who just sold all of his shares in the company for $61 million.

That’s a serious chunk of change, but not when you consider that Cayne’s stock was worth more than $1 billion just one year ago. So how is Cayne spending his days now. The New York Timesreports:

In the past weeks, together with his wife, Patricia Cayne, who is a student of Jewish religious traditions, Mr. Cayne has spent considerable time searching for comparable events in religious history to see what lessons can be learned from the collapse of his firm, said a person who has spoken to him recently.

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